Pregnant Mothers Need Support

Past research has revealed that pregnancy helps a mother stop smoking. Although there are a significant number of women who quit smoking during pregnancy, there is also an abundant amount that returns to smoking after their delivery. Previous studies concluded that 45% stopped smoking during pregnancy, while 80% smoke again within the first year post pregnancy. Nguyen et al. (2012) believe that “pregnancy offers a unique opportunity for smoking cessation” (p. 1312). They believed that the women’s reasoning for returning to smoking was dependent upon their social network. With this being said, the researchers were determined to find out the specifics of social networks that correlate with mothers going back to smoking after their pregnancy. To do this, they distributed interviews to a group of postpartum women in a specific hospital. The cohort was diverse, but each patient was over 18 years of age, recently had a baby, and said they had smoked before and had stopped since their pregnancy.  The results confirmed that each woman was part of social network that involved smoking, but the researchers were still interested in determining the influence of each social network. They came to find that the smoking community had a significant impact on the mother’s choice to smoke again. Being around their normal social network of family and friends that smoked was a temptation. Although they still had the same social network during their pregnancy, it was not as tempting because they were supported to remain abstinent. The research concluded that it is difficult for mothers who quit smoking to stay consistent after pregnancy because they do not have a social network similar to them. With this information, Nguyen et al. (2012) stressed the importance of specific interventions during these difficult times to remain abstinent after pregnancy. “To date, interventions preventing postpartum relapse to smoking have had limited to no success” (Nguyen et al., 2012, p. 1313). The results of the study have challenged the idea of new intervention programs; however, there were a couple of limitations to be considered. First, the sample of women came from one hospital, weakening the generalization of the entire population. In addition, some of the women had their child or partner present during the interview.

Nguyen, S., Von Kohorn, I., Schulman-Green, D., & Colson, E. (2012). The importance of social  etworks on smoking: Perspectives of women who quit smoking during pregnancy. Maternal & Child Health Journal, 16(6), 1312-1318.

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